


A Matter of Birth

by thegeminisage



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Illegitimacy, so sweet it will give you cavities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage/pseuds/thegeminisage
Summary: It's time for Corvo to tell Emily about her father.





	A Matter of Birth

**Author's Note:**

> well despite all evidence to the contrary, i was SURE when i was playing DH1 that in DH2 they would reveal emily's biological father was some pompous aristocratic asshole. so i kept my hands over my ears going "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU CORVO'S HER REAL DAD BYE" while fully expecting to be massively disappointed, because i am afraid to hope for good things. imagine my delight then when she called him "father" in like the first 30 seconds! thanks arkane studios for giving me one (1) good thing
> 
> also, [here](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/146513154381/my-mother-always-said-shed-tell-me-who-my-father) is a relevant soundbyte
> 
> (warning: v mild allusions to torture and killing and death, but like, definitely nothing worse than canon lmao)

Corvo Attano was never a man of many words, but six months locked away in Coldridge's darkest corners taught him a new appreciation for silence. In the interrogation chair, surrounded by the traitorous backstabbers who had Jessamine killed in cold blood, silence was his only friend. Corvo had no control over his fate. They would grow bored and kill him, or they would grow angry and see him suffer more. But he still had one way left to left to hurt _them_ , and it was with his silence: they could make him scream, but they could not, could _not_ make him confess. In point of fact, the very first time it was brought it up, Corvo stopped speaking altogether out of sheer spite.

And he said not another word, until after he put Coldridge behind him for good.

Now that he can see daylight again, Corvo's finding silence less welcome company. A man of few words can make each one count. A man of nearly none invites assumptions: that he's mad or dangerous, or that he's a fool. Corvo couldn't give one plagued rat's ass about what most people think of him. The natives of Dunwall have been exchanging snide whispers behind his back since the moment he set foot on her shores. But he does care what Emily thinks. Because she's—

She's his—

She's _his_. But even to himself, he can't quite spit it out.

Jessamine was going to tell her when she turned eighteen. If she hadn't already figured it out, that is—she's so cunning for her age, sly enough to slip her captors more than once with absolutely no training. She's only going to get smarter as she gets older, and he couldn't be more proud. But he doubts if she could say the same for him. Even aside from the matter of his birth—that he's Serkonan—and the matter of hers—that she's a Serkonan's bastard—there's his failure to protect her mother. Bad enough for the Royal Protector to be thwarted by assassins. Worse for a man with his skill and training to have his—his _family_ torn apart before his eyes, while he does nothing.

Emily has a loving heart and little care for what's proper, and Corvo doubts she'd give a second thought to matters of birth. Nor has she intimated in word or deed that she blames him for what happened that day. And yet—he can't help but worry she'll be disappointed, at best. Ashamed, at worst.

Jessamine was supposed to tell her. And Jessamine would have known just how to say it; for all her naivety—naivety that Emily inherited—she always seemed to know exactly what those around her needed to hear.

But Corvo let Jessamine die bloody and before her time, so now the task falls to him.

In prison, Corvo had a long, long time to think about what Emily's life will be like after he's gone. There were so many things he wished he could have said to her, after she was first ripped from his arms. But the silence and the spite has moved in and taken root like bloodbriar in his heart, and choked out all the words.

Letting Emily think the secret died with her mother isn't an option. He doesn't want her hearing it from some gossipy maid or as an insult from one of the aristocracy. He can't think of a worse way for her to know.

Quick and clean, that's the only way to do it. Corvo waits until after the excitement from the coronation has died down, and one morning when Emily has a lull in her schedule he takes her breakfast in to her instead of the usual serving girl, with instructions that they're not to be disturbed. When Emily's finished, he asks her, "What do you know about your father?"

Emily meets his eyes and looks away quick. Dread knots in Corvo's gut. "Nothing. Mother always said she'd tell me who he was one day. But then she died, so..."

Quick and clean, Corvo reminds himself, quick and clean, just like killing. No need to drag it out. He kneels next to where Emily's seated, and takes both her hands in his. They're so small and soft, and they make his look all the more weathered and rough in comparison. He has killed so many people—but it's Jessamine's blood that stayed under his nails the longest. He hopes she won't be disappointed.

"I need to tell you," he starts, but he has to pause to take a breath, and—

Her eyes go very round. Corvo thinks, that's it—she's figured it out, and he won't have to say it after all. But to his complete shock, she surges forward into his arms, clinging to him as though she might drown, and begins to cry.

"Emily!" Corvo says, stunned: he has not seen her weep since her mother's death. His hands settle around her small shoulders. "What is it?"

"You don't have to tell me, do you?" she asks, voice muffled from where her face is buried in his shoulder. "It's all right if I don't know, isn't it?"

This is worse than everything he feared. Perhaps she already knows, then, and just doesn't want the confirmation? So she can try, at least, to believe—some other truth. Corvo's throat clicks as he swallows. "Why?"

"Because—" Emily presses her face further into his shoulder, as though she's afraid to look at him. "I wanted—I wanted—" She is crying in earnest, and the sound hurts him like nothing they could ever have come up with back at Coldridge. "Sometimes I pretend that it's _you_!" she bursts out finally. "And if you told me—and it wasn't—I couldn't pretend anymore!"

Corvo remembers the drawing she made for him, back in the Hound Pits Pub. He might have known. "Emily." He strokes her hair, still tangled and mussed from last night's sleep. "Emily, look at me."

She does, her eyes red and puffy, fat tears still rolling down both cheeks. She has his eyes, but her mother's smile. He'd give anything to see it again. He takes her face in his hands and brushes away her tears with his thumbs. "It is," he says. "It is me."

She sniffs. "Really?" she asks, like she's afraid to hope. He might have _known_. "You wouldn't say it just to make me feel better, would you?"

He shakes his head. The words come a little easier, now. "You're mine." He taps her lightly on the nose. "We're stuck with each other, kid."

There's that smile. His sun doesn't rise without it. "I'm really your daughter?"

Blood be damned: she'll always be his daughter. "Yes."

Emily laughs, delighted, and wipes at her tears with the backs of her hands. "And you're really, _really_ my father?"

"Yes."

She hugs him again, tiny arms wrapped tight around his neck. Corvo cradles her to him. How lucky he is, to have sired an empress! Other people will watch as their children sicken or starve without a soul in the world to care for their suffering, but the whole of the empire loves Emily, almost as much as he does, and the worst suffering his little girl will ever know is already behind her. He'll see to that.

"Could I call you that?" Emily whispers shyly into his shoulder. "Sometimes I did, just to myself. When I played pretend. Could I—say it for real?"

Very suddenly Corvo's own throat tightens. He has not wept since Jessamine died, either. Now seems a good a time as any. "If it would make you happy," he says. He would kill and die to see her safe and happy; drown this cursed city in blood, if that was what it took. "Of course you can." It would make him happy, too.

"Father," Emily sighs into his shoulder. "I love you, Father."

Corvo feels the bloodbriar begin to loosen its grip around his heart. For this, at least, he knows just the right thing to say. "I love you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't played DOTO yet so if there are relevant spoilers in it please don't tell me them. also i absolutely did bang this out this super late at night like an idiot and then barely edited it at all so i apologize in advance if it's riddled with typos or other such fuckery


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